BROWDERBOOKS
Wild New York
Work is now underway for a new edition of Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, Liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies. Why another edition?
Wait a minute, someone might say. Wasn't that book published by a small press, Black Rose Writing?
Yes, it was. But the publisher chose not to renew my contract and stopped selling the two books of mine in his catalog. Amazon now reports Fascinating New Yorkers as out of print, with limited availability.
Maybe the book didn't get good reviews? (hee hee)
On the contrary, you jerk, it got good reviews. So I decided to self-publish a new edition with a front cover you won't easily forget.
Otherwise it's the same?
Not quite. There's a new chapter on the writer Norman Mailer, plus a few small updates elsewhere in the text.
So when will it come out?
Can't say exactly. Later this year.
Meanwhile everyone is supposed wait with baited breath until it shows up?
Yes, you cynic. With baited breath. (What a cliché!)
I can hardly wait.
Get lost, vermin. I will gladly wait, to make sure it is done right. Meanwhile let's have a look at the crime of the century, vintage 1906.
The Crime of the Century
On the evening of June 25, 1906, a fashionable audience was assembled on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden, a vast Beaux-Arts structure at 26th Street and Madison Avenue, for the premiere of the frothy musical comedy Mamzelle Champagne. At 10:55 p.m., while the performance was nearing its conclusion, a burly redheaded gentleman of fifty with an abundant red mustache entered alone and sat at the table customarily reserved for him, five rows from the stage. Resting his chin in his right hand, he seemed lost in thought, perhaps eyeing the young female performers onstage, as was his custom, since he was a connoisseur of teenage girls.
Some ten minutes later a handsome younger man left his own table, walked about nervously while muttering to himself, then approached the older man’s table. As a performer onstage began the song “I Could Love a Million Girls,” the younger man took out a revolver from beneath his coat and fired three shots at point-blank range into the older man, one bullet hitting his left eye and killing him, while the other two grazed his shoulder. The victim’s body fell to the floor, and the table overturned with a clatter. The murderer then left holding his weapon aloft to indicate that he was done shooting.
A stunned silence gripped performers and audience alike. Spectators thought at first that this was part of the performance or another of the party tricks common in fashionable circles at the time. But then, grasping what had happened, people screamed, leaped to their feet, and began a panicky flight toward the exits. At the theater manager’s insistence, the orchestra made a feeble attempt to go on playing, but the performers were frozen in horror and the panic continued. Someone put a tablecloth over the body, and when blood soaked through it, added a second one as well.
The following morning the murder rated a triple headline in the newspapers, for the victim was the most famous architect of the day, and the murderer was a well-known man-about-town. The cause of the murder? A young woman of exceptional beauty who had been involved with both men, though not simultaneously. What happened on the night of June 25, 1906, would haunt her for the rest of her long, long life.
It was the crime of the century, witnessed by scores of people, and would even inspire a movie, for which the young woman, by then no longer young, was hired as an adviser. And the murderer? He got three trials and after a rather comfy stint in prison was finally set free. Being rich, he had good lawyers.
Who were these people, and what became of the murderer and the young woman? See my next post one week hence to learn more about the crime of the century.
© 2021 Clifford Browder
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